Year: 2015

A Clear Voice?

Articles, Liturgy
2 Comments

Fr. Anthony Ruff OSB reports on the meeting of the U.S. bishops at Baltimore.
He raises the possibility of some movement on the ongoing problems with the current “translation” of the Roman Missal with the election of a new chair to the U.S. bishops liturgy committee.
“it is noteworthy that the bishop who spoke most negatively about the new translation, Archbishop Wilton Gregory, was a candidate to be chair of the USCCB liturgy committee. He was elected. His term will begin in 2016.”
” Archbishop Wilton Gregory, also a former USCCB liturgy committee chair, rose to echo Trautman’s concerns. Before printing up more books with the current translation, we ought to look at the problems with the translation. There should be a review of the problems with the new Missal.”

Isn’t it time the Irish bishops addressed the problem realistically and had a real discussion about it?

Receiving Eucharist: a goal to achieve or something to share on the journey of life?

Articles, Liturgy, Pope Francis
8 Comments

Rocco Palmo reports that Pope Francis today, Sunday 15 November, visited Rome’s Evangelical Lutheran church for an ecumenical dialogue.
Speaking of her marriage to a Catholic, a woman member of the Lutheran congregation addressed “the hurt we’ve felt together due to [their] difference of faith” and asked about their ability “to finally participate together in Communion.”
In response Francis said “I ask myself and don’t know how to respond – what you’re asking me, I ask myself the question. To share the Lord’s banquet: is it the goal of the path or is it the viaticum [etym. “to accompany you on the journey”] for walking together?”

The Iconoclast of Brittany!

ACP News, Articles, Editor's Choice, Reform of the Irish Church
1 Comment

Seamus Ahearne writes about the necessity of the ACP.
“I think the ACP exists not just to make noise or to be prophetic but to add ballast and communion to the collective in ministry. We are at breaking point as priests. We will fall apart if we stay apart.”
” the ACP is to reach out and call attention to the tiredness and to the ageing of the diocesan priests. What is the support structure for them? Creating clusters and adding on more work to do cannot be the answer. Creative and imaginative ideas are necessary (as Francis said). We cannot go on as we are.”
“The ACP isn’t just a vehicle for the journalists to use or an association of renegades. The ACP cannot be about the big noisy issues – nor can we forever be fighting big causes. It is the essentials of faith that are our interests and the ordinary issues of day to day life.”

Not an era of change but a change of era. Updated

Articles, Pope Francis
11 Comments

Updated to include a translation of Pope Francis’ address. Translation kindly provided by Pádraig McCarthy. Translations of the Popes addresses are very slow to appear in Rome so our thanks to Pádraig.

Joshua J. McElwee reports in NCR on a speech by Pope Francis to a national conference of the Italian church in Florence.
Pope Francis made a fairly strong statement that the Church must continue to face problems of the present in new and culturally relevant ways.
“Before the problems of the church it is not useful to search for solutions in conservatism or fundamentalism, in the restoration of obsolete conduct and forms that no longer have the capacity of being significant culturally,”
“Christian doctrine is not a closed system incapable of generating questions, doubts, interrogatives — but is alive, knows being unsettled, enlivened,” said the pope. “It has a face that is not rigid, it has a body that moves and grows, it has a soft flesh: it is called Jesus Christ.”

Ordination of married men would cause other major changes within the church

Articles, Pope Francis, Social Justice
9 Comments

Soline Humbert recommended this recent article by Joan Chittister OSB in NCR as worthwhile reading.

Joan argues that ‘if Pope Francis takes the question of married men seriously, that could, for a change, lead to real change’.
…”young unmarried women see little or no place for themselves in the male church.” …”So pollsters track them as they go somewhere else seeking spiritual nourishment or, just as likely, go nowhere at all. Disillusioned with the gap between Christian teaching and Catholic practice on equality, religion has little meaning for them now. In a world where secular institutions are more likely to recognize the fullness of a woman’s humanity than the church does, church does not interest them much anymore. “
“I am convinced that until the women’s question is addressed in the church, the numbers will continue to decline, and the church will fail in the 21st century”

No welcome for the angel

Articles
3 Comments

Alan Titley wrote a strong article in Irish on page 13 of the Irish Times of Tuesday, 04 November.
Pádraig McCarthy offers his own “rough unpolished translation”, for those not fluent in Irish.

“Compared to most of the states of the world we are as secular a state as you would find within the distance of a relatively long plane trip.

But you’d need to be living under a stone, or live only in the world of television, or inside a cave, if you thought that events of cultural life – among which religion is included – would not take their place in the life of that community.”

Priests call for open discussion on the need for equality of Women in all aspects of Church life, including Ministry.

Pope Francis, Reform of the Irish Church, Social Justice
34 Comments

A group of Catholic priests have taken Pope Francis at his word in calling for dialogue in the Church and have called for open discussion on the need for equality of Women in all aspects of Church life, including Ministry.
Their statement is attached for your information.

Documented Appeal to Pope Francis to Request the Re-instatement of the Ordained Diaconate for Women

Pope Francis, Social Justice
3 Comments

Luca Badini Confalonieri, Research Director, on behalf of the Trustees, Patrons and Staff of the Wijngaards Institute recently appealed directly to Pope Francis for the Re-instatement of the Ordained Diaconate for Women.
“There should be no room in our Roman Catholic Church today for the rationale which subverted female deacons in the Middle Ages: the phobia concerning menstruation and the conceit that women are innately inferior to men.
The need for the ministry of women deacons is plain in every country. May your hands be the first to restore the diaconal dignity to women.”

Death and Funerals

Articles, Liturgy
5 Comments

As we move into the ‘month for the dead’, November, Seamus Ahearne speaks of his experience of funerals in parish life. “The Church still can provide a scaffolding to carry the event of death which is beyond our words and our understanding.”
“The Rituals of the Church still help to carry the mystery of death. This remains true even though most people now have little contact with Church or little grasp of the language of Church. It is an enormous demand to stretch our creative ability to ensure that every family feels totally welcomed. The response we make, has to explore the depths of our humanity.”

The need to grow in Wisdom and Mercy

Articles, Reform of the Irish Church, Social Justice
13 Comments

Tim Hazelwood outlines his thinking, and that of the Pastoral Council of Killeagh-Inch parish, for inviting Tony Flannery to speak in their parish and the subsequent reasons for the withdrawal of the invitation.

The initial fall out from Bishop Billy Crean’s intervention has been covered previously at “What did the bishop achieve?” http://www.associationofcatholicpriests.ie/2015/09/what-did-the-bishop-achieve/

What did Pope Francis achieve with the Synod?

Articles, Synod on the Family
12 Comments

Massimo Faggioli reports on the outcome of the synod in http://www.globalpulsemagazine.com/news/life-begins-at-50/2070

“Yet the final document, which received the quorum of the two thirds for all its paragraphs, is more cautious than the text of 2014.
It is also silent on some important issues, namely the attitude of the Church towards gay people (except a weak passage on families with gay members).”
“But in this sense the final relatio of 2015 is a document that gives us a picture of the Church – more accurately, of its bishops – that is closer to reality,”
“The Synod also showed that much of the Catholic debate today is the expression of a debate between American bishops. The fact that they disagreed in public … is in itself surprising. It is the symptom of the extremism and sectarianism of some … but also the sign of Francis’ breakthrough in the American Catholic hierarchy.”
“The Synod’s final document is important, but it says less about the future direction of the Church than Francis’ great speeches of October 17 (a new ecclesiological framework for a synodal Church) and October 24 (against the ideologues in the Church). This is why the Synod of 2015 will disappoint some liberals, but it is clearly a victory for Francis.”

The Bells of the Angelus Call us to ……..

Articles
1 Comment

In his Western People column Brendan Hoban comments on the recent changes RTE have introduced to the broadcasting of the Angelus on television.
“The truth is that the Angelus, as we’ve had it on RTE television since 1962, needed to be updated and that it makes great sense, in a very different Ireland, to present it as a time of reflection for everyone.”
“I’d be much more exercised by the more pervasive negative attitude to religion and in particular Catholicism in the wider media.”

Conclusion of the Synod of Bishops; address of Pope Francis

Pope Francis, Synod on the Family
10 Comments

Time will judge the impact of the synod. The Pope’s closing comments stand for themselves but perhaps many will read as much into what he left unsaid as what he said.
“Surely it was not about finding exhaustive solutions for all the difficulties and uncertainties which challenge and threaten the family, but rather about seeing these difficulties and uncertainties in the light of the Faith, carefully studying them and confronting them fearlessly, without burying our heads in the sand.”

“It was about trying to open up broader horizons, rising above conspiracy theories and blinkered viewpoints, so as to defend and spread the freedom of the children of God, and to transmit the beauty of Christian Newness, at times encrusted in a language which is archaic or simply incomprehensible.”

“The Synod experience also made us better realize that the true defenders of doctrine are not those who uphold its letter, but its spirit; not ideas but people; not formulae but the gratuitousness of God’s love and forgiveness. This is in no way to detract from the importance of formulae – they are necessary – or from the importance of laws and divine commandments, but rather to exalt the greatness of the true God, who does not treat us according to our merits or even according to our works but solely according to the boundless generosity of his Mercy “

“The Church’s first duty is not to hand down condemnations or anathemas, but to proclaim God’s mercy, to call to conversion, and to lead all men and women to salvation in the Lord (cf. Jn 12:44-50).”

One Man, One vote; One woman, No Vote: Where stands the Synod’s Credibility?

Articles, Social Justice, Synod on the Family
6 Comments

Nicole Sotelo has a very interesting article in NCR.

Can we not learn from history?
No matter how many statements are made about the dignity of women, the status of Mary vis a vis apostles and saints, the use of feminine pronouns when referring to church, the fact that women are totally excluded from decision making roles poses huge questions and problems about the credibility of statements coming from the synod and church authorities.
At the synod women were allowed observe and make some statements but had no role is decision making or voting. Can and should the world take seriously any statement resulting from such a process in the 21st century?

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